.20
~\({O})/~
16.
Revelation Mountain
~\({O})/~
Capim Town was only a poor village on a poor continent, even if Quilava had come to call it home in the years he had lived there. He had spent almost ten years in that village, and in all that time the explorer who had visited three days ago was the first off-continent visitor they had had in years.
So Quilava didn't understand why 'mon from Mist had come here.
The Demetrius and the Gardevoir – Mechanical machinations created by the pokemon on Mist – both stood proudly in the waters off the bay of Capim Town, and the beaches had been blocked off by pokemon who had come out of those ships. All the villagers had flocked to the cliffs off the side of the bay to get a good look (There was a fletchling spy who was taking discreet rounds every so often and filling everymon in on what was happening), but Quilava preferred to stay in the town, far away from whatever was happening on the beach. Not that he could escape it that easily. Papers – actual papers; not papyrus – had been strung up against the bark of the houses all over Capim Town, and even though they were in unown and not the preferred footprint runes they all read the same thing:
ATTENTION: As of 7/3/11133 Capim Beach has been declared a QUARANTINE ZONE until further notice. All unauthorized pokemon are barred from entry. All due regards, Helping Adventurous Pokemon Prosper Institute
Quilava could still see the ships from in town – that was how large they were. He turned away from them and began to stroll further inland. Maybe he'd go hunt something. Something to make up for that long-lost fish. Everymon was up on the cliffs, so he wouldn't have competition. That sounded like a plan-
"'Ey, Quilava!"
Quilava looked to the left, although he didn't need to to recognize that voice- it was Duskull, the town crier.
"Quilava!" Duskull yelled. "the others sen' me! They said there's somethin' you should see!"
"Ain't in tha mood. Leave me alone." Quilava began to walk towards the town exit and awau from Duskull. Maybe he'd go hunt a bison to make up for that fishing incident last week. Yeah, that sounded good. The butcher would pay something hefty for a large cut of meat.
"I's abou' the thing that caugh' you while you wen' fishin' last week!" Duskull yelled back at him.
"I don't wanna see it," Quilava said.
"I really think you shoul'!" Duskull yelled.
"Wha's so importan' that ah have to see it?!" Quilava snapped, turning around.
"I's Lugia."
Quilava was silent for a moment. He could not believe the words that came out of Duskull's mouth. Lugia? The creature that moved the storms at its very whim? That was an old mon's tale! And Duskull expected him to believe that Lugia had crashed into the ocean and nearly swept him out to sea?
He'd bite.
"…Alrigh'. Show me." Quilava turned around, waiting in place expectantly. Duskull wasted no time turning around and heading back up the hill.
"I's this way!" he called back. Quilava had to take the bridges there instead of floating like Duskull did, but he had a general idea of where Duskull was going. Reluctantly, he followed.
~\({O})/~
The cliffs off the coast offered a much better view of the ships than could be gotten from in town. All of Capim Town was currently gathered at the edge, looking over at the ships parked below. Quilava marched up to join them, led by Duskull.
"'E's here; 'E's here!" Duskull announced excitedly, doing a spin in the air as the others turned around to look at Quilava.
A fletchling perched on a tree branch, leaning forward and whispering something into the head zangoose at the very edge of the cliff. Zangoose nodded wordlessly, and then Fletchling flew off.
Quilava marched up to the edge of the cliff, and looked over at the ships. If he was going to be all the way out here, then he might as well make it worth his time. Sure enough, he spotted something being hoisted up between the two ships. Something that did look suspiciously like…
But that was ridiculous. There was no way that was Lugia.
But it was.
~\({O})/~
Serenity Village
~Espurr~
Slowly coming to. Espurr sat up in her bed as her ears were greeted with yet another round of rattling from behind that shelf.
And just like that, after a week of quiet, the hauntings began again.
Espurr stood. She scanned the room for that dark figure again. She didn't see it. But the shelf still rattled.
That was the last straw. Espurr was tired of being plagued by this thing while she slept. She wondered if she could locate and boot it out instead. Taking a breath, she closed her eyes and let her other sense take over.
She couldn't see with it. Not the way she could with her eyes. But she could feel. And she felt that there was something else in the room with her, and she knew that she could grab it.
Espurr took another breath to keep herself calm, and then let her mind's grasp close around the entity. And then she yanked.
It yanked back, but Espurr was prepared for that. She didn't let go. And slowly, from behind the shelf, she extracted with her mind's grip a single lone blue flame. It hovered in the air statically for a second, desperately trying to escape Espurr's psychic pull in whichever direction it could, and then Espurr lost her grip upon it and it zoomed out the window.
Espurr ran up to the window and watched it go. But by the time she spied it, it was just about gone. She saw it fly down the square's south exit and disappear from view. It seemed familiar to her.
Slowly, Espurr's adrenaline-fueled energy left her, and she realized how weary she was. She stumbled back to her bed, and collapsed in it. And only in her sleep did she realize where she had seen that flame before.
~\({O})/~
The incident with the treehouse had made a lasting impression upon Espurr, Tricky, and all the others. It had been a week since, and in that time Espurr and Tricky had not gone on any missions at all nor talked to any of the other kids. And halfway through the week, Tricky had caught a cold, which left Espurr all on her lonesome. She had spent the remaining days reading the few books in Audino's meager library, as well as helping out with the general chores and Audino's cooking. The day before last had been Errand Day.
Today, Audino was gone, and Espurr had the run of the house to herself. She donned her exploration bag, grabbed an apple on the way out (Audino was always in abundance of those; she'd found), and ate it on the way down to the south side of town.
The Ancient Barrow. That was the only place (Outside Espurr's dreams) where she had seen one of those flames before, and she intended to investigate. It was close enough to town that if the beheeyem came looking, she'd be able to flee and get help before they caught her.
The villa stood on its island of evil, isolated from the rest of the world by nothing but a lake of water and a rickety old bridge. Espurr still remembered where all – snap – most of the rotting spots were. She only snapped one board on her way across the creaking bridge, and was able to keep her balance on the rest of the tilted planks easily.
Espurr set foot onto the muddy island, and made note of the fact that the doors were boarded over again. There would be no distractions this time. She marched right up to the Barrow's door, and placed her paw on the wood. It felt hard. Espurr pressed harder, putting both paws on it. She pressed as hard as she could, and then all of the sudden the rotting wood snapped forward and she fell straight onto the Barrow's dirty porch.
tHesEaLiS bROKeN.
Espurr rolled to her feet as quickly as she could. The door had broken apart! She stared into the Barrow's depths, trying to discern something out of the darkness within.
"Get out," the Barrow growled in its booming scary voice. Espurr didn't flinch. She didn't move either.
"No," she said calmly. "I'm not leaving."
"Get OUT!" the Barrow screamed, and all of the sudden a massive flow of swamp water jettisoned from the Barrow's open doors and blew Espurr back. She skidded to a stop halfway across the bridge, coughing and trying to catch her breath. She stared at the Barrow intensely in frustration, noticing that the door had sealed itself over again. No. That wasn't going to work twice. Espurr stood up, and marched across the slippery bridge all the way back to the Barrow.
She put her paws on the sealed door again. It held. She pushed. It held. She pushed as hard as she could. The door didn't move an inch. It almost didn't even feel like a door, although Espurr wouldn't have been surprised at that point if it wasn't. She tried the windows. Those were boarded over too, and they didn't budge at all. At some point Espurr considered smashing them in, but then she realized she didn't have anything on paw to do that with. Reluctantly, she concluded that she'd either have to come back later or another day.
She was halfway back across the bridge when her ears picked up the sound of somemon whistling off-key to themselves.
Nuzleaf. Espurr didn't have time to properly make her way to either side of the bridge before Nuzleaf walked into her line of vision. He turned his head to see Espurr slightly wobbling in place halfway across the bridge.
"Hah?" he asked, looking at Espurr. "What'r you doin' on there?! Get off!" He looked genuinely angry. Cowed; Espurr silently did as he said. Nuzleaf grabbed her arm once she was off, and began to tug her towards the village.
"Come with me," Nuzleaf said. "We'e gonna have a talk."
~\({O})/~
Village Square
Nuzleaf and Espurr entered the village Square, and Nuzleaf sat Espurr down on the ground off to the side and crouched down in front of her.
"I don' wanna ever see you goin' near tha' thing again; you unders'and me?" he said. "You can go into any mystery dungeon ya want; I don' care, bu' you stay away from tha' place. Unders'and?"
"…I understand," Espurr said.
She didn't understand. She wanted to know why; why the Ancient Barrow was so feared; why phantoms kept returning to haunt her in her sleep every night; why no-mon else seemed to even realize it existed! And if Nuzleaf had any of those answers for her, she made it her intention to wring it out of him. One way or another.
"Good," Nuzleaf said. He stood up straight, and stretched. "Glad we coul' settle this peacefully."
He began to walk off, but Espurr followed.
"What's in the Ancient Barrow?" Espurr asked. "And what were you doing over there?"
Nuzleaf stopped. He was silent for a brief second.
"…I was checkin' something'," he said, and then he began to walk along once again. Espurr followed.
"I'm coming along," she said matter-of-factly.
Nuzleaf shrugged. "I won' stop ya," he said. "Jus' stay away from tha' house."
~\({O}/~
Simipour's House
"I think we've put this off long enough," Audino said, following Simipour around the house as he walked. "You weren't having these fatigue problems two months ago; you need a checkup."
"What did the last checkup do for me?" Simipour yawned, discreetly fleeing to the kitchen. Audino followed him. "I feel fine. I appreciate your concern; but it is wholly unneeded here.
"I insist," Audino said firmly, stepping in front of Simipour before he could leave the kitchen.
"As do I." Simipour sidestepped her and walked into the living room. He sat on the couch that was next to the window and stared at her through eyes that were barely open. "You're wasting your time."
"That may be…" Audino said, sitting next to him with her bag. "But so are you."
Simipour shrugged stubbornly. "Not me; I am content to sit right here on this couch for the entire evening."
"Perfect. Then you'll be content to sit on that couch while I give you a checkup."
"Not in the least." Simipour gave her a frustrating smile that made it clear he was not going quietly. Audino sighed and tried to keep it from becoming a groan of frustration.
"Fine." Audino dug in her bag, pulling out a piece of paper, a feather quill, and some ink. "If you can't be bothered to care about your own health, then at least put the minds of the pokemon who do care at rest." She scribbled something on the paper, then thrust it to him.
"I'm prescribing you a cup of lum berry tea daily. That should calm your nerves and help you sleep easier. I'll be back in a few days to see how you're doing."
Simipour yawned. "I've been sleeping just fine."
"Do it anyway; starting today. Just before bed."
Audino packed up the quill and ink and rose from the couch. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have another appointment to get to. There's an ursaring having some trouble with evolution adjustment."
And with that, she rose from the couch and walked out the door. Simipour looked at the piece of paper in his hands. He yawned again.
It was worth a shot.
~\({O})/~
Espurr and Nuzleaf wandered southwards once more, with not a word exchanged in between them. When Espurr passed the villa, she eyed it with a look of hateful curiosity – what was it hiding, that was so frightful all of Serenity Village wouldn't talk about it?
At some point, not long after they had passed the town limits, Nuzleaf suddenly veered off the path. Espurr watched as he picked up a couple of bushes and set them aside (They were fake, she later concluded), and then began to walk down the hidden path that they concealed. Nuzleaf silently ushered Espurr along, before replacing the bushes, furtively glancing around, and continuing up the path silently.
"Where are we going?" Espurr finally asked, once they had walked a fair bit into the path and were surrounded on all sides by lush forest. Nuzleaf pointed above them both, at the large mountain that outclimbed all the others in the near distance.
"See tha'?" he asked. "Revelation Mountain. Tha's where we're headed."
Espurr looked up at Revelation Mountain. She had seen it several times from a distance, but never up close. It had been lost on her before just how large the mountain was. It didn't look like it was even possible to climb it in a single day.
"I haven't heard of it," Espurr settled on for her next words. It was a minute before Nuzleaf responded.
"Revelation Mountain is an ol' village tale," Nuzleaf said as they marched up the path. "Legend says there's somethin' at tha top of tha' mountain; somethin' we were never supposed to see. So tha's why every night one of us village 'mon stands at the base o' the mountain an' stays guard. No-mon's ever been up there."
"And are you standing guard?" Espurr asked.
"I ain't," Nuzleaf said.
"Then what are we doing?"
"I wanna see it. Wha's at tha top of Revelation Mountain. I've been all over tha Grass Continen'; left this place when I was still a child."
"Why?"
"Why?" Nuzleaf shrugged. "Well, I fel' like it. Was barely a child no more anyway. An' I wanted to go explorin'. Travelled to the Grass Continen', and saw all the sigh's to see. I'm old now."
He pointed up at the mountain again as they walked.
"Tha' mountain- tha's my last expedition. My las' mission before I retire for good." He shrugged once more. "'Least I don' have ta spend it alone."
Eventually they reached a plateau where the ground became slightly muddy, and ahead of them was a spring. Nuzleaf bent over and took a drink from it with his hands.
"Drink. I's clean," he said. "Water 'round this mountain's always clean."
Now that Espurr thought about it; she was unquestionably parched. She silently took a drink from the spring herself too.
The mountain only got larger the closer they approached it. It was already so large that Espurr couldn't even see the peak when she looked up, and by the time that they were at the mountain's base she could only see the steep cliff that formed the lower mountain.
At some point, Nuzleaf halted, and so did Espurr.
"We're here," he whispered sharply. "Hide."
Espurr hid behind a bush. Nuzleaf walked ahead, and if Espurr peeked over the leaves of the bush far enough, she could just see the bright-yellowish outline of a pokemon standing in the distance.
Hippopatas.
"Hmm?" Hippopotas turned around at the sound of somemon trudging through the muck towards her. She turned around to look at him, her eyes widening as she caught sight of him waving.
"Mornin', neighbor!" Espurr heard Nuzleaf call jovially as he walked towards her.
"Iz something ze matter?" Hippopotas asked, her eyes narrowing.
"Nothin' much," Nuzleaf said. "Only tha guardin' order got switched around. I'm today; you're tamorrow, all tha'."
Hippopotas' eyes widened.
"Vell…" she said. " I DO have important farming to do…"
"Go for i'."
Hippopotas didn't need any more encouragement than that. She happily trotted straight back down the path, and Espurr had to quickly change her position so that Hippopotas didn't notice her on the way down. Once Hippopotas was only a speck on the path back to the village, Nuzleaf ushered Espurr back out. Espurr quickly walked up the join Nuzleaf, and looked at the path that lay ahead of them both.
"Bes' ta get a head start," said Nuzleaf, and with that he began to hike up the large, steep incline that lay ahead of them. Espurr sent a brief glance back towards the path that lay behind. It would be so easy to opt out now…
…But there was no point. She wouldn't get an opportunity like this again. And so she began to tentatively follow Nuzleaf along the rocky path upward instead.
~\({O})/~
The Demetrius
~Ninetales~
The statue had been stored on the Gardevoir, because there was more storage room on the Gardevoir then there was on the Demetrius. The Gardevoir was making a quick return journey to Mist to drop off the statue, where it could later be transferred to Cloud Nine for further inspection, but the Demetrius – and everymon aboard it – had stayed behind to comb the bay off Grass and search for any more anomalies of the same vein. Ninetales had stayed behind with them. He knew he was needed to sign a thousand sheets of paperwork back on Cloud Nine, but paperwork ground him down and the Demetrius was his personal ship anyway. He could have a day on the high seas if he wanted to. It might take off some of the daily stress of being what he was.
Something tapped Ninetales on the shoulder. He quickly glanced to the left to see what it was , but there was nothing there. Or something had been there. Ninetales inwardly smirked. He knew this game. A tap came from his right shoulder. Ninetales turned his head to look right, then whipped it left at the last second-
-He was promptly half-tackled to the deck by a sylveon. Barely stopping them both from tumbling over the deck of the ship with his tails; the two pokemon lovingly nuzzled one another.
"I thought you were supervising the Gardevoir," Ninetales chuffed once they had finished.
"And I thought you were going to do paperwork," Sparkleglimmer purred back.
"I guess we've both been naughty today," Ninetales breathed.
"I won't talk about the paperwork if you don't talk about the Gardevoir."
"Deal."
"Ah… excuse me?"
Both Ninetales and Sparkleglimmer looked up from their nuzzling. A lone phanphy sat in front of them; looking almost a bit flustered.
"Yes?" Ninetales asked before Sparkleglimmer could scare him off. He knew she had a bit of a short temper at times.
"I thought you should know…" the phanphy began uncomfortably, flapping its ears in nervousness. "We found another one."
~\({O})/~
The chains of the pulley creaked, jangled, and ever-so-slowly rose. A few pokemon in the water gave the go-head, and the pokemon pulling the chains up on-deck gave it another heave. Ninetales and Sparkleglimmer followed the phanphy onto the rear deck of the ship, where another statue had been half-pulled out of the water.
It was Rayquaza. Ninetales' heart sank. This statue of Rayquaza had the same horrified expression upon its face that the statue of Lugia had had, and after hearing about what had happened in Pokemon Plaza Ninetales was loath to believe that this was somemon's idea of a large-scale joke.
Sparkleglimmer didn't have the same reaction as Ninetales, but she hadn't lived as long as he had. Most pokemon hadn't. Ninetales had even talked to Rayquaza once, purely by chance one day when the legendary had decided to take a rest break on Mt. Freeze. A proud beast; he was, but he had a cultured sense of literature (he hoarded old human books) and was a fairly decent pokemon, as long as you earned his respect first and didn't insult him in any way, shape, or form. Seeing him like this hurt Ninetales more than anymon else on that deck probably knew. He lowered his head in silent mourning.
Then he felt the sadness briefly leave him, and he glanced left to see Sparkleglimmer's feeler on his back. She had a slightly worried look on her face, so he forced himself to cheer up for her sake. Now wasn't a time for mourning anyway.
"How much storage space is available on the Demetrius?" he asked. The phanphy looked up, glad to have something to have orders to occupy its nervousness for the present time.
"The cargo holds were emptied of all but essential supplies before we set out," said Phanphy. "Approximately three of the four storage holds, sir."
Ninetales took a deep breath and nodded solemnly. That would hold Rayquaza.
"We're turning around," he announced. "Store Rayquaza in hold B and set course for the Mist Continent."
"I had paperwork I needed to do anyway," he muttered to Sparkleglimmer on the way out.
~\({O})/~
Revelation Mountain
Greenery ended where Revelation Mountain began. Espurr followed Nuzleaf up the hill, which quickly became a rocky mountain pathway once they were up far enough. Nuzleaf moved with a newfound energy that Espurr had never seen in him before, walking and hopping gracefully between the rocks of the pathway and shimmying away from its edges expertly. Espurr (Who had gotten a great deal faster over the three weeks she had been here) found it hard to keep up, especially as the path got narrower and Espurr had to take care not to fall off a cliff as they went on.
They walked for hours and barely scaled the base of the mountain. A couple of times Espurr nearly slipped and fell, but she quickly recovered herself and continued onwards. The path wasn't that steep or narrow yet.
Soon, the sun was it its highest point in the sky, and they were high enough up that the heights would have made Espurr woozy if she cared to stare at them (she was making a point of not looking down). She quickly hurried to catch up with Nuzleaf, who was briskly hiking up the trail with not even a pant of exhaustion.
She cleared her throat as they walked, trying her best to keep a respectable pace with Nuzleaf.
"It's a long climb up," she said. "I was hoping you might tell me why no-mon ever goes near the Ancient Barrow. So we don't get bored while we climb."
Nuzleaf, effortlessly hiking up the slop ahead of them, didn't spare a look back at Espurr.
"Even I don' know tha'," he said. "I jus' know whenever I go near tha place, I get this feelin'. Like i's evil. Like i' should be lef' well alone. Everymon jus' leaves i' be for tha' reason. I's still standin's 'cause no-mon's brave enough ta tear i' down. And tha's all I know." And then he continued hiking again without a word.
Soon, Nuzleaf stopped up ahead. He stood outside the entrance of what was obviously a very large, very dangerous mystery dungeon. Espurr could see it in the little things, how the path just ahead of them looked off in all the wrong ways and the air sky seemed to ripple.
"So I's a mystery dungeon," Nuzleaf muttered to himself. He thought for a moment as Espurr studied the dungeon entrance. It was just like Poliwrath River. The place exuded evil; she could feel it. And this far up the mountain, if they ever got trapped in there… no wonder this place was guarded.
"…Nah. Ain't worth it." Nuzleaf turned around. "We're goin' home."
Espurr agreed.
~\({O})/~
Village Square
It was sundown by the time that Espurr and Nuzleaf walked back into the village square. Nuzleaf scratched the back of his head.
"Well…" he started. "Ah… Good run today. We'll go again next month when I have guar' duty again; soun' good? Maybe you can bring your fennekin frien' along for tha ride too."
"Perhaps," Espurr said. Tricky would love that; she knew.
And then they parted. Nuzleaf walked back east, and Espurr entered Audino's house. The day had been more exhausting on her than she realized, and she quickly made herself cozy with one of the few books in Audino's house that she hadn't read (which happened to be a cookbook, but beggars couldn't be choosers).
Espurr was reading about how to properly roast different types of berries when Audino walked in the door and set her bag down next to it. She collapsed in the chair next to Espurr, letting out a prolonged breath of weariness.
"I don't feel like cooking tonight," she said after a minute.
"Come on." She got up, stretching. "We're going to Kangaskhan's."
~\({O})/~
Café Connection
The Café Connection was the only building still lit after dark. Espurr followed Audino into the building, where the sudden change in lighting temporarily blinded her. She had only been in the building once before, and never at night. It was mostly quiet, but there were still enough pokemon in the diner for there to be an audible amount of noise in the background at all times. Audino walked up to the counter and took a seat, bidding Espurr to do the same. It was only once she had sat down that she noticed Watchog.
Audino noticed as well. Silently, she edged Espurr over and attempted to sit a little farther away from him. Watchog looked at them, taking a sip of his drink.
"What?" he asked flatly. "Don't wanna be around me?"
Audino didn't answer that.
"Your problem." Watchog took another swig from his drink. Audino took a deep breath.
"How's guarding the school been?" she asked.
"Painful," said Watchog. "I've been seeing things around the grounds. Blue flames. Couple of weeks ago somemon broke into the library. I think there's a thief in the village. And mark my words; next time it shows up I'll be ready for it."
~\({O})/~
Cloud Nine
~Sparkleglimmer~
Lightning flashed, but it was half a minute before thunder crashed. Sparkleglimmer didn't like the look of the clouds on the horizon. She knew it was only a storm – Cloud Nine had weathered many storms before – but something about that storm unnerved her. There wasn't much that could unnerve her. Turning her gaze from the window that offered a front-row view of the building clouds, she hastily picked up the rest of the paperwork Ninetales was supposed to sign tonight with her bottom ribbons and used the top ones to shut the door of Ninetales' office behind her as she walked out.
It was a Sunday, and many of the facilities on Cloud Nine were closed, which left the place completely deserted. There would be no-mon hurry-scurrying around (At least; not above deck), so Ninetales had wanted to do his paperwork in the frigid cold Mist air. (When Sparkleglimmer had asked why he never used his office anymore, he said working outside reminded him of Mt. Freeze.)
She walked across the large park that made up the massive front deck of Cloud Nine, where Ninetales lounged near the edges of the deck (How all this greenery reminded him of that barren old mountain; she would never know). His ears twitched as she approached him from behind, and that was how she knew that he knew she was there.
"You forgot these," she whispered in his ear, neatly setting the paperwork beside him. Ninetales was busy reading through a ledger of documents he had probably been putting off for weeks, but he hummed in acknowledgement to let her know he was listening. Sparkleglimmer took a seat beside him, looking at the storm system that loomed in front of them. Lightning flashed. Thunder crashed a little sooner this time.
"I don't like how that storm looks," Sparkleglimmer finally said. "I think we should go inside. You wouldn't want to get caught in that with all your paperwork."
Ninetales looked up from the ledger he was almost done reading through, glancing at the clouds dismissively.
"It's nothing but a storm," he said. "We would get blizzards ten times worse on Mt. Freeze in the winter."
There were times when Sparkleglimmer almost wanted to club Ninetales over the head with something, and this was one of them. Did he not understand that you couldn't just sit in a thunderstorm and do paperwork like nothing was happening? Ninetales turned back to his ledger, and it was clear that his mind was made up. Sparkleglimmer glanced at the storm ahead. She heard the thunder crash almost simultaneously with the lightning.
Sparkleglimmer took a deep breath, then discreetly planted her feeler on Ninetales' back. Before Ninetales even had a clue of what was happening a sense of calm spread through him, and the normally astute look on his face became dazed. In the state of calm that Sparkleglimmer had him in, he'd be more susceptible to suggestion. Sparkleglimmer didn't like to do it in public if she could help it, but the situation called for it.
"This storm is something awful," she breathed in his ear. "You want to get inside before you're caught in it."
Relief spread through Sparkleglimmer (But she was careful to keep it out of her feelers) when she saw Ninetales slowly nod. She removed her feeler, and slowly Ninetales began to return to his normal state of mind. But the suggestion was still there. Nine times out of ten he would follow it.
True to her predictions, Ninetales stood up, gently picking up the paperwork with his mouth. He began to trot off towards the central government building in the distance, his tails lazily swishing behind him as he went. A few sheets of paperwork still lay on the ground in front of Sparkleglimmer. Sparkleglimmer sighed. For somemon who claimed to have a good memory, he forgot things a lot.
Thunder crashed. Sparkleglimmer didn't see the lightning, but the sound of the thunder kicked her into gear. She hastily picked up the sheets of paperwork Ninetales had left behind, then hurried after him into the building.
~\({O})/~
The telltale whir of the engines under the deck began to start up once again, and within seconds the airspace around Cloud Nine had a slight sheen to it. Sparkleglimmer glanced out the window as they passed it. The protection fields had been raised. That meant the storm was too close for comfort. Or, it meant that they'd be going through it. Knowing the muk-head who was in charge of steering this thing, probably the second one.
After Sparkleglimmer's intervention, Ninetales had been more than happy to finish the paperwork in his office. And it was just as well, because the storm raging outside was nasty beyond belief. Even from here, Sparkleglimmer could hear the howling of the wind and the telltale crash of thunder from outside. She couldn't help but glance out the window at the storm, as if seeing what was happening instead of just hearing it would help her feel better about it.
"It's only a storm," Ninetales muttered from his desk. Whether that was meant for her or himself, Sparkleglimmer would probably never know.
She turned her attention back towards the window, her ears zoning in on the howling of the wind. It no longer sounded like just wind to her. It sounded like something was in the storm; shrieking and howling in the background. Because surely that high-pitched scream that had just reverberated through the clouds wasn't the wind whistling through something.
"Only a storm…" Ninetales muttered to himself.
Thunder crashed again. Sparkleglimmer didn't see the lightning. She didn't want to anymore.
~\({O})/~
Audino's House
~Espurr~
Slowly coming to. Espurr awoke in her straw bed, gazing up at the roof of her bedroom. It must have been the middle of the night, because the room was as dark as ever, and Espurr could barely see a thing.
…Wait. That wasn't right. It was never this dark at night. There was always some moonlight filtering in, or at least the glow of the luminous moss streetlamps outside to offset some of the darkness. This darkness was like being trapped in a box. Something was wrong.
And so, using her knowledge of the room's layout to navigate, Espurr headed for the window to see what had happened to all the light. Gazing out through the window's crossbars, she saw nothing but more blackness.
And then it all clicked for Espurr. This blackness was familiar to her. She knew where she was. And that meant…
At Espurr's will the walls of her bedroom began to crumble away, disintegrating into nothingness until she was left standing in the middle of the blackness.
This was the Dream. It was back.
They came. The voices, whispering all around her, spinning up into a massive vortex that towered over her and was somehow blacker than the blackness itself.
And then the louder voice, the one that had been torturing Espurr for the past few weeks, spoke in its cacophony of raspy howls:
…HeLLO.
~\({O})/~
Deerest Love – Oh wow that's comprehensive! I can never find my own typos so that helps a lot. I'll be sure to edit them out sometime in the near future.
Guest – Unfortunately, I won't be including Natures in the story. Thanks for asking, though!
